and an additional one penny per ton was allowed for the expenses of
the market. This statute extends to a circle measured by a radius of
twenty miles from the General Post-office, and up to the present time
has been productive of much good to the general interests of the
entire metropolis. A duty upon coals is naturally unpopular, and it
would be difficult to devise one that was otherwise. It is always
easy to raise a popular clamour against taxes that press upon matters
of first necessity, but in what other way is the public exchequer to
be replenished? It will not suffice to tax objects of luxury alone,
and with regard to the coal duty it is very improbable that the poor
would benefit in the slightest degree by its repeal. The utmost
reduction in the price of coals that could be expected, would be a
little more than a halfpenny per hundredweight, and this difference is
far more likely to find its way into the pocket of the vender than
into that of the needy purchaser. There is, moreover, another
trifling consideration to be taken into account before the abolition
of these duties be decided upon. Relying on the respect usually paid
to property in this country, and confiding in the good faith of the
House of Commons, the Corporation have mortgaged these duties in order
to raise a very large sum of money. It was not for any purposes of
civic ostentation, or indeed for any purely civic object, that they
were induced to incur this heavy obligation. Cannon Street, the Model
Prison at Holloway, the admirable improvements and enlargements of the
Gaol of Newgate, attest the disinterested application of the funds
thus obtained. But how is faith to be kept with their creditors, if
their property be snatched from their hands, and with it all means of
making repayment? If the Legislature deem it just and expedient to
deprive the Corporation of one of their chief sources of revenue, they
are bound to release them from all obligations incurred through the
possession of those sources. It is not disputed that the Corporation